Chicago Is About at the End of the Road

Stephen Green at PJ Media brings us the following story. Endgame: Chicago

For decades the people running Chicago have been kicking the can down the road. Loans to pay current expenses. Promises of gold-plated pensions, with no provision for putting aside the gold. Selling off city infrastructure to pay for current expenses. Spending. Graft. Whatever.

As of today [Wednesday, 19 November], Chicago's political position is probably best described as paralysis.

The city council's finance commission rejected Johnson's tax package on Monday, leaving the council with no budget to vote on yesterday. But that's just the start.

While they have until Dec. 31 to approve a budget, the two sides — maybe best described as the Johnson Democrats and the Slightly Less Insane Democrats — are fighting over billions.

There is something like a one billion dollar hole in the budget. The value of commercial real estate is going down, so the property tax revenues are going down. And the mayor wants to raise taxes on business, even though they are already leaving the city as fast as they can.

Here's the thing: Johnson's head tax isn't meant to provide property tax relief for families stuck with bigger bills — more on that in a moment — or pay for vital city services like police and fire. Instead, he hopes to raise $100 million for "violence prevention and mental health." In other words, a nine-figure slush fund for progressive nonprofits.

And the pensions?

Meanwhile, the city's pension system is an underfunded wreck that taxes can't fix, because there won't be any sheep left to shear — er, people and businesses left to tax — if the city imposed taxes big enough.

Stephen Green notes that you can't blame Republicans, though the Dems of Chicago try to do that on a regular basis. Big Bill Thompson, the last Republican mayor of Chicago, left office in 1931.

The spending side of the equation is also out of control, and the Chicago mayor doesn't want to be held to account. From Chicago Contrarian: Ernst & Young Report Details Chicago’s Wasteful Spending: It’s Worse than You Think

In May of this year, the City of Chicago, facing a projected $1 billion budget shortfall over the next two years, paid “Big 4” accounting firm Ernst & Young (EY) $3.2 million to analyze the city’s spending and identify potential savings and efficiencies.

A controversy arose when the mayor initially refused to release the report, instead preferring to “filter” it, in the words of Budget Director Annette Guzman. Aldermen were rightly suspicious of this approach, assuming that the mayor’s office would delete proposals that they did not agree with.

The wasteful spending runs to the hundreds of millions of dollars. Click thru that 2nd link for those details.